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Local businessman and property developer Stan Pate has been cleared by the Alabama Supreme Court of the misdemeanor charge of menacing that stemmed from a 2009 confrontation at a now-defunct restaurant.

Staff file photo

By Jason MortonStaff Writer

Published: Wednesday, July 3, 2013 at 3:15 p.m.

Last Modified: Wednesday, July 3, 2013 at 3:15 p.m.

TUSCALOOSA | The Alabama Supreme Court has cleared local businessman and property developer Stan Pate of the misdemeanor charge of menacing that stemmed from a 2009 confrontation at a now-defunct restaurant.

Local businessman and property developer Stan Pate has been cleared by the Alabama Supreme Court of the misdemeanor charge of menacing that stemmed from a 2009 confrontation at a now-defunct restaurant.

Staff file photo

In a 4-2 decision, the state’s high court ruled Wednesday that the act of holding a gun during a dispute does not constitute the crime of menacing.

In fact, walking toward someone while holding a firearm doesn’t meet the legal definition of the crime either, according to Alabama Supreme Court Justice James Allen Main, who wrote the opinion for the court’s majority.

That’s because the Alabama criminal code lacks a specific definition of what, exactly, makes up a “physical act” during the commission of a menacing crime.

Main cited prior case law that requires the criminal code to be interpreted narrowly, any doubts of the meaning of the language should be decided in the defendant’s favor and that an accused suspect “is not to be subjected to a penalty unless the words of the statute plainly impose it.”

“Consistent with the foregoing and applying the principles of statutory construction, we conclude that Pate’s getting the gun, without more, was not sufficient to establish the physical-action element of menacing,” Main said in his majority opinion.

Pate was aware of the timing of the court’s ruling coming as the nation prepares to celebrate its independence.

“It makes me proud to say I’m an American citizen on this eve of the Fourth of July,” Pate said. “In my heart, it’s the right day to be vindicated.”

Pate was arrested on the misdemeanor menacing charge a week after a Sept. 30, 2009, dispute between him and the general manager of the now-

defunct Santa Fe Cattle Co. restaurant near the intersection of Skyland Boulevard and Alabama Highway 69, which had permanently closed a few days earlier. The business had operated in a building and on land owned by Pate’s development company, but it was shut down as part of the restaurant chain’s bankruptcy restructuring.

The dispute between Pate and the restaurant employees was over what items the restaurant’s owners were allowed to remove from the premises. At the time, Pate said that about $500,000 worth of property was removed from the building and that the business owners owed him more than $4 million in rent. Pate contended that the property — including booths, stoves and industrial sinks — belonged to him pending payment of that debt.

During the argument, Pate grabbed a 12-gauge shotgun from his vehicle while ordering Brian Hart, the restaurant’s general manager, to get off his property. Pate never pointed the weapon at Hart, and police officers summoned to the restaurant decided Pate had not acted illegally.

However, Hart pressed charges and Pate was arrested on Oct. 6, 2009. Five months later, Pate was convicted of misdemeanor menacing in Tuscaloosa Municipal Court.

Pate appealed his conviction to Tuscaloosa County Circuit Court, where testimony and video evidence showed that Pate held the weapon but did not aim it in Hart’s direction.

Circuit Court Judge John England upheld the conviction, however, ruling in December 2010 that the act of obtaining the weapon from his vehicle was enough to constitute misdemeanor menacing. England sentenced Pate to 60 days in jail and a fine of $250, but he suspended the jail time and placed Pate on probation for one year.

Pate appealed England’s decision to the Court of Criminal Appeals, which in June 2012 upheld the lower court’s finding. Pate then appealed to the state Supreme Court, which agreed in October to hear the case.

“Speaking truth to power and standing up for your rights comes at a cost — a monetary cost and at the risk of creating future retribution,” Pate said. “And that of itself keeps a lot of people from standing up for their rights.

“But let me say to everybody: I’m not scared and ... my backbone is still strong.”

In a dissenting opinion, Associate Justice Glenn Murdock said that Pate’s grabbing of the gun was a “physical act” and that the court’s majority decision now renders the entire crime of menacing in question.

“Given the holding of the main opinion,” Murdock wrote, “it is unclear to me and, I suspect, to law enforcement and the bench and the bar as well, as to what now constitutes an offense under (the state menacing statute).”

Pate was represented by Tuscaloosa attorney Joel Sogol, who brought in appeals specialist M. Virginia Buck of Northport to assist with the Supreme Court appeal.

After the court issued its ruling, Sogol spoke to the widespread importance of the decision. The legal question — whether holding a weapon during an argument was enough to constitute a crime — had never come before the Supreme Court before, Sogol said.

“This question has been knocking around for a while, and it becomes an even more important issue now with this open carry (movement),” Sogol said, referring to growing efforts to exercise residents’ rights of carrying firearms in public. “Prior to this, there was no guidance to the courts on whether simply being armed was sufficient enough action to violate the statute.

“And now, we know that it’s not.”

Tuscaloosa City Attorney Tim Nunnally said that while he believed the initial conviction and subsequent support from the lower courts were the correct rulings, he understands and appreciates the judicial process.

“While we respectfully disagree with the Alabama Supreme Court’s ruling, we strongly believe in every citizen’s right to due process and to have his case reviewed in the appellate process until a final decision is reached,” Nunnally said.

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